


Where the mountains touch the sky and rivers bend

by ignipes



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-17
Updated: 2006-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There isn't a rest stop in the country they haven't been to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the mountains touch the sky and rivers bend

When Dean comes out of the bathroom, Sam is leaning against the Impala with his hands tucked into his pockets.

"Ready?" Dean tosses the keys up, catches them, and pulls open the driver's side door.

"I've been to this rest area before," Sam says. His breath fogs in the cold morning air, and he makes no move to get into the car.

"We've been to just about every rest area in the country before," Dean points out. He shrugs and glances around. "Nothing special about his one."

Cars and trucks rumble by on I-70 above them, and below them the river mutters quietly beneath a thin layer of ice. The sky overhead is blue and bright, but it's early enough that the sunlight hasn't reached the bottom of the canyon yet.

"Hey, remember when they were building this road?" Dean asks suddenly. "Traffic was stopped at the end of the canyon and there was that dead cow by the side of the road."

Sam makes a face over the top of the car, and Dean grins crookedly. It's a story that needs a punch line, but all he has is a warm and hazy memory that jumped into his head without warning, a sunlit moment of hot asphalt and roadside weeds and barbed wire.

"Ready?" Dean asks again, shoving the memory away and turning his mind toward the drive ahead. There's a place in Rifle that does a decent cup of coffee, assuming it's still there, and Dean figures by then Sam will be nagging him for a turn at the wheel.

"Yeah. No. I mean, this is where..." Sam folds his hands together and leans on the roof of the car, his face set in an expression so serious it sends a shiver of nervousness through Dean.

"Where what?"

"This is where I called you from." Sam looks away, watches a mother dragging her two sleepy children across the parking lot toward the restroom, then looks back at Dean. "When I left. Remember?"

Dean nods slightly, so small a motion he doubts Sam even sees it.

"The guy I was hitching a ride from took off while I was in the bathroom -- dumped all my stuff on the sidewalk, thank god -- and it was the middle of the night and there were no other cars around and I thought--"

_I'm fine,_ he'd said. _I'm in Colorado now, probably make it to California day after tomorrow._

The words had tumbled out quickly, tripping over each other, and Dean had only listened in stunned silence. Some part of him had known he should be shouting, scolding, pleading, _something_ to get Sam back home, turn him around and pull him back over a thousand miles of interstate between him and the shitty one-bedroom apartment where Dean was standing in the dark kitchen, alone except for Dad's rumbling snores in the other room and Sam's stubborn voice on the phone.

_I'm not changing my mind. I'm not, Dean, and -- and I hope he doesn't stay mad._

Then a click, no time for Dean to respond, no chance for a fight or a goodbye, and Sam was gone.

A dozen replies pass through Dean's mind, a dozen different ways of telling Sam that he remembers just fine, thanks, he remembers the furious shouts and slamming doors, stuffing a fistful of carefully saved twenties into an envelope and slipping a sharp knife into a carefully packed duffel, Dad vanishing for a few hours and coming back stinking drunk and demanding to know why the hell Dean had let Sam leave, and months of painful not-mentioning and not-talking and not-wondering that finally led to a detour through sunny Palo Alto and a few hours spent feeding quarters into a parking meter, trying not to look like a serial killer stalking coeds, watching the entrance to the dorm and hoping.

And it's so _stupid_ because there's no reason for Dean to feel this cold, sick twist of panic in his gut, so sharp it's almost physical pain. Sam is right here in front of him, perfectly whole and healthy and safe for the moment, not a thousand miles away surrounded by strangers, not hurrying into a world where Dean can't follow him, not hitching a ride from an goddamned asshole who drives off and leaves an eighteen-year-old kid in a remote rest area in the middle of the fucking night.

Dean says, "Oh."

"Yeah." Sam pushes away from the car and opens the passenger side door but pauses before climbing in. He looks down for a moment, his hair falling into his eyes, and when he raises his face again he's smiling slightly. "I did the right thing, leaving," he says after a moment, "but I guess... I guess I could have gone about it in a better way."

He's waiting for Dean to say something, that much is clear, but Dean doesn't know if this is an explanation or an apology or what, doesn't even know if it's for him or for their father who will never hear it. With Sam, sometimes it's hard to tell.

And he doesn't have the slightest idea why Sam's weird brain is fixated on this right now, but he figures it doesn't much matter.

"Ancient history," Dean says, because nothing else seems right. "Let's get outta here."

Sam's smile widens, like maybe that's the answer he was looking for.


End file.
